


Aftermath

by ilyena_sylph, Merfilly



Series: For Family [16]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Complicated Relationships, Multi, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 01:04:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7554217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One last reunion to be had, and then the family is whole.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

Ahsoka had put the twins' safety fully in the Noghri hands the night prior, had Rex go find her as much bootleg liquor as he could, and then drunk herself comatose, certain she was going to feel the backlash of her other master's death in the night. It might have been a cowardly way to handle it, but she couldn't have stopped her _ori'vod_ from doing just what he wanted without undoing every bit of progress they had made.

She would just have the guilt of Obi-Wan's death on her hands alongside all the other victims of trying to make the right choices in her life.

So it was not actually processing at all, her montrals ringing with the blood pulse in her skull from the hangover, when she stepped out of her state cabin to go check on the twins and found Obi-Wan in the corridor, headed that way himself. She balanced herself by leaning, one-handed, on the bulkhead, and stared, to make certain she wasn't actually still under the influence.

"Good morning, Ahsoka," Obi-Wan said, pausing outside the other state room. 

She stared at him for another few moments, not shaking her head (that would hurt entirely too much) as she grumbled, "I'm not prone to Force hallucinations, kriff it..." Even as she grumbled, she started one of the minor meditations to purge the last of the alcohol from her body. The Force hadn't been ringing with death and loss when she woke, but she also hadn't been reaching for it.

"I am no hallucination. Merely an impossibility that I am beginning to believe." Obi-Wan had come back on the ship with Vader, and they had spent a quiet evening, with Obi-Wan falling asleep on the couch in the outer chamber of Vader's cabin. He did not have any restrictions on where he went, but he most wanted to interact with the twins. Luke felt awake, so he'd come to find him… yet Ahsoka was there, and he would not ignore her.

She snorted, indelicate annoyed noise, and frowned at him again. "...definitely pretty impossible. I mean... he said he would listen, but that -- I didn't dare ask for more than that, not with..." She couldn't quite find the words she wanted for what her _ori'vod_ had gone through, for what Obi-Wan had told her, for the years since that awful day, so she just let her voice trail off. 

"I know. That you asked… I am honored, Ahsoka. I could feel your rage with me as well." He walked over to her, knowing she did not feel well by the way she held her head, the color of her lekku. "Is there some way I can help you?" he offered, hand raised but not reaching for her unless she agreed.

"...how are you at the healing variation for hangovers?" she asked, looking sideways at him, moving a half-step closer to that outstretched hand. "I think there was something in one of the bottles that didn't agree with me. And that I was angry with you didn't mean I wanted you _dead_ , even before you explained." 

"I appreciate that," he said dryly before he reached up and placed a hand on the space between her montrals, concentrating. "I sincerely doubt that rot-gut produced on an Imperial ship is any safer to be drinking than that from our own Fleet was," he added. "Not, mind you, that I believe you would have had access to that when we served together. I would think the troops would have been careful to keep that away from you."

He eased his Force touch into the light healing energies to help her flush the poison out of her body, renewing cells that had been sluggish because of the alcohol. 

"Bunch of overprotective _vod'e_ ," Ahsoka agreed, though she had made an amused noise at the 'would have been careful' bit. "And overprotective him, and you. As to safe... no, probably not, but it wasn't going to kill me, and I didn't want to be sober to feel you leave us, Obi-Wan.

"It's not as though _he_ keeps alcohol on hand, and the ship's Captain hasn't decided what he thinks of having me around yet. The troops, on the other hand... well. we've been working on reminding them who they are. Wasn't hard for Rex to get me enough." 

"I'm not asking how much is enough." Obi-Wan knew, on a visceral level, having given himself that release a few times in the long years of waiting in exile. Too many deaths blossoming in his awareness, taking him closer to the feeling of being a near-extinct relic of a dead age. "I will probably need quarters of some kind. I doubt _he_ is going to want me to sleep on his couch the entire trip back to Coruscant."

"...probably not, no. I am so very not inviting you to share with me and Rex," she said, tips of her lekku twitching in amusement at the thought, starting to feel better as his strength in the Force kept working on her hangover. "Alright, quarters. Let me just go log in and check the mainframe for what's empty, figure out how to get you as close to us as possible." 

"Thank you. I will be with Luke, if you would let me know later," he told her, easing back from contact as she seemed more recovered. "Vader seems to think an ex-Sith, an ex-Jedi, and myself might come up with something better, going forward, which I take to mean I can still assist with the boy's training."

"Sure," Ahsoka agreed, then blinked once. "...okay, that surprises me, but.... good. We can probably use your rationality in keeping us from letting our anger lead us to leaving actually important things out." Though, speaking of important things — 

"The boy's got no idea how to actually use that 'saber, does he?" 

Obi-Wan shook his head. "Two days. That's all I've had with him, most of it moving to the deeper desert. So no. I gave it to him, made certain he wouldn't decapitate himself, and trusted in the Force."

"Two days?" Ahsoka blinked, shaking her head in incomprehension, then waved at Luke and Leia's door. "Go on; I'll go figure things out and get back with you... and don't mind the Noghri. They're a wonderful people, a lot like the Wookiees, really. I'm sure _ori'vod_ has told them you're clan by now." 

"Alright." He moved on back to the other door, requesting entrance, so she could go her own way.

+++++

They had been back long enough to fall into a rhythm when Vader swept through his Tower, carrying a data pad to where Obi-Wan was watching Luke attempt multiple Force manipulations in the training room that had been created for the twins. Ahsoka nor Leia were in residence as the Senate was on a marathon of legislation, dismantling harmful Imperial doctrines.

Vader dropped the pad beside Obi-Wan, then took his own seat to watch Luke's progress.

Obi-Wan picked it up, flicking it on. The classified report opened to him, revealing it was CC-2224's service file. That made Obi-Wan's hand shake, and he looked at Vader.

"The information is yours. Do with it what you will," Vader stated. "Clones that remained in service were all reconditioned. Order 66 has no validation any longer. The aging effect was slowed in those that were useful. He was most useful."

Obi-Wan felt a moment of pain and anger alike for _Cody_ being reduced to those words. Yet, he began to read, sparing himself no details, seeing the Imperial atrocities carried out by the man's units.

"He's still alive," Obi-Wan managed to say. 

"He is," Vader agreed, reaching out enough to lay a hand on Obi-Wan's thigh. "Which I thought you should know." 

Vader's attention went to Luke, then, watching him training, seeing the raw talent and feel of the Force around him, and the utter lack of refinement, all at once. Not surprising, given what Obi-Wan had said (and he felt an odd affection for Owen Lars' protection of his son), but odd to see. 

Obi-Wan took guilty comfort from the touch, despite the fact it was Vader that had upset his entire world by making him even think on the subject of one clone commander. Idly, his attention on the pad more than Luke, Obi-Wan called out two more objects for Luke to add to the ones already in the air, and the young man attempted it, only to drop all of them.

That meant Obi-Wan set the pad down, and smoothed his emotional shock away, going to where Luke was giving a frustrated grimace and looking at everything he'd dropped.

"You already surpassed yesterday's amount," the elder Jedi said by way of reassurance. "It does take practice."

Vader nodded, watching his son and his teacher -- Luke had been doing well -- though it was surprising to hear Obi-Wan being so gently encouraging. 

"It's just... frustrating, Ben, to have it all working and then just... fall apart. But thank you." 

"You're doing well. Now, go work on your studies a while," Obi-Wan said, gently dismissive. He then glanced at Vader. "Unless you'd rather spend some time training him today, old friend?" That he could say that so easily was testimony to the last ten-day, learning a new life with Vader swamped in managing the Fleet and the Army, restructuring it to defend the New Republic instead of terrorizing the Empire.

"I think I will see to the lightsaber training, if you are willing to spar?" Vader told his son. "I will not bore you with the distinct forms," he added, just to needle Obi-Wan. "Not today."

"Sometimes it is good to just reach out and spar," Obi-Wan conceded, idly. "Vader, do I have leave to use a ship?" He wanted to go to Kamino, to at least expose himself to Cody, see…

...and get the pain over with, when Cody refused to deal with him, as he suspected would happen.

"Kamino?" Vader asked, though he was certain that the answer was yes, and at the faint flinch, he nodded. "Take a Lambda -- not mine -- they are used to them coming in."

"Thank you." Obi-Wan took the pad with him, going to change into traveling attire. His ident card marked him as having many privileges, would allow him to take a Lambda, would get him landing clearance. From there, it would be just a matter of seeing Cody… and then they could both fully close that part of their lives.

++++

Obi-Wan stood on a high walkway, watching the drills below him. The savage ferocity with which the commander was pushing these troops, all of them recruits rather than clones, was almost appalling to him.

That the commander was Cody only made his chest ache. Maybe he'd made a mistake coming here. Maybe he should let the past remain buried. Maybe he should take what he had, this reawakened friendship with Anakin and his training of Luke, and Leia when she was available, as all he deserved.

He'd failed everyone else, after all.

He could just walk away, leave before Cody ever knew he had been there. Cody would have his reconditioned mind, his loathing for these troops that were clumsy and slow compared to the Vod'e. 

Obi-Wan closed his eyes as he knew that last was from touching Cody lightly in the Force. His Commander was fueled by anger now, with none of his compassion for shinies in the harsh methods he used now to shape the Imperial -- no, New Republic -- troops.

What was the best course now?

"Have the commander meet me in the briefing room on this level," he told the Kaminoan assigned to be his guide before he strode to the room in question.

When he got there, he drew his hood up so his face was fully in shadow, not that he suspected Cody could recognize him. Tatooine and the Purge both had cut away so much of his life that he was so old compared to his actual age. Still, he had his back to the door when Cody did join him, a snarling ball of anger at being interrupted.

That rage tempered into shock almost immediately on seeing a figure robed in the manner of the Jedi, and Obi-Wan had to brace against the lashing guilt and loneliness that came under that.

"CC-2224 reporting as ordered, sir," the man said through the filtered voice modulator of the helmet.

"Please remove your _buy'ce_ ," Obi-Wan said in a voice that held more age than he cared for, but sounded so little like the man Cody had known once.

The Mando'a had thrown the commander for a loop; no one used it anymore to address any of the few _Vod'e_ left. He did as ordered, though, for good soldiers followed orders. 

"Yes, sir," he said with it off, and Obi-Wan turned, to see the face of a man he had once…

...no, not once. Obi-Wan, despite it all, still felt a flare within him of that old attachment. The scar over the eye had been joined by others, evidence of the hard campaigns that came after the War. With a slow movement, Obi-Wan reached up and pulled his hood back, not expecting any recognition, but owing it to this man to show his face too.

"Commander," he said, eyes meeting their dark counterparts across the width of the room. "Do you know me?"

The man's face twitched, just slightly, as he applied himself to determining the identity of this Jedi /all dead, killed by us, traitors!/.

"That you are a Jedi, and therefore proscribed by Imperial decree is all I know."

"The Empire is no more."

"So I know, which is, sir, why I have not called for the troops to prevent your escape from this facility," the commander told him steadily.

Obi-Wan shifted, one hand coming up to stroke his beard in thought, and the man in front of him stiffened, going pale under the dark complexion, eyes blown wide in shock yet again.

"You know me now," Obi-Wan said sadly, eyes falling from the commander's face with the heaviness of his emotions.

"I -- I know, sir." There had been other words, words that would not come now, not with the weight of years of new conditioning applied to him. Once, he had held hope, buried in his treacherous heart, that he had truly failed on that day. 

Now he had proof that his General, his _Jetii_ , had evaded the death sentence and survived. The face was wrong, the hair gone silver, but that stroke of the beard was enough to bring out the similarities in the eyes and build to the fore.

"I am here under the graces of the leader of the Fleet and the Army," Obi-Wan said. "He told me where to find you. To be honest, I nearly left, rather than be a burden on your memories."

Those words were his General's, admitting the hard course and yet having committed to it. "Why did you stay then, sir?"

"Because the man I knew as my Commander would want all the intel. Because that man deserves to have closure. Because, as this entire change from fear and terror-mongering proceeds, there are few enough of us who knew what it was to try and serve in honor for the ideals the New Republic must find.

"And because, commander, I needed to tell you that I never held the attempt against you, once I had the facts. Even before I knew, I could not bring myself to censure you in my mind, believing something had to have forced the action."

The hard-bitten soldier's lips pressed tight as the litany continued, and then that last had his hand clench under where his helmet was tucked against his side. "All good reasons, perhaps, in your mind, but I am only a soldier who follows orders."

That made Obi-Wan want to lose his composure, to yell at the man to find who he had been, but that was neither fair nor rational. "I came to learn if Cody still existed," he said instead, eyes back on the face, reading, feeling with the Force --

\-- and there it was, that loneliness again, and bitter regret.

"If he did, would he even be anything but a relic of a lost age, conquered by all that has happened in the long years since he existed?" the commander asked, a slight quickening of his breath the only physical reaction he could not keep from betraying how solidly Obi-Wan's question had connected.

"Then we'd be two relics, adrift, trying to find purpose… but we could be together in doing so."

There was a brief hesitation, then the man crossed to the table, setting his helmet down carefully, before he moved to be in arm's reach of the Jedi. "After all that has happened?"

"Especially after all of that, Cody."

The gloved, armored hand came up and rested on the cloaked shoulder, dark eyes locking on pale ones. "General, but say the word."

"Come back with me."

++++

The shape of the New Republic was something that concerned Leia greatly, day-in and day-out, but that didn't mean she failed to appreciate the other parts of her life. Here she was, a little more than nineteen standard years old, working as an influential Senator in the new government, and she sat at the cusp of a decades-old series of plots and betrayals that had ultimately given her the unlikely platform to work from.

She had her family of Alderaan, Bail and Breha Organa, Queen and Viceroy of the system, with all of their cousins and extended relations. And then Leia had her Coruscanti family, with a mix of blood and honorary ties. No matter how mired she got in the politics of the situation, Leia knew she could turn to any of these people, and find assistance to solve the problems.

There were other connections she had not yet had time to investigate, ones that Sabé had promised to guide her to. Those were the family members of Naboo, her birth-mother's kin. That would come in time.

Through Luke, who had chosen to pursue a military career, and her birth-father, she could stay abreast of the Fleet and Army matters. Ahsoka had remained as both guard and tutor in ways of the Force. While Obi-Wan was a little disappointed to see Luke choose the Fleet, he understood, given how mad for flight the young man was.

Both twins gave as much time as they could to being trained in the ways of the Force, while the three elder Force users hammered out how to handle new ones that would be found. A girl by name of Mara Jade had already been flushed out, trying to assassinate the former Darth Vader, and she was taking a lot of Ahsoka's time when Leia didn't need the Togruta's presence directly.

All in all, Leia had a cautiously optimistic outlook on life, and counted all of her ties very seriously, even those with the Noghri who refused to hear of setting aside their duty to her. She could, and would, bear up the legacy of all of her parents, so that the New Republic was as strong as its predecessor.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, all of you, for the kudos and comments through this series!


End file.
